Speakers

Joel Blake OBE is a fintech strategist, governance advisor, and panel moderator specialising in lower middle market private credit, capital allocation, and risk intelligence.

With over 20 years of board-level experience, Joel has designed growth finance frameworks and supported the deployment of more than £300 million into scaling businesses across the UK and international markets. His work sits at the intersection of private credit, data infrastructure, and policy, helping funds and financial institutions navigate segments where information asymmetry and execution risk are most acute. 

Joel advises established lenders and emerging private credit managers on technology strategy, portfolio intelligence, and governance models that support disciplined underwriting and long-term value creation in underserved markets.

He is the Founder of GFA Exchange, a market intelligence platform developed to address a structural gap in lower middle market private credit by enabling funds to trade, benchmark, and monitor borrower- level risk where traditional data coverage is limited. 

Joel also serves as a Board Advisor to Taranis Capital and chairs Sustainable Tech Future, an initiative advancing responsible and inclusive innovation in financial markets.

He was awarded an OBE in 2016 for Services to Business Support and Enterprise.